Simon & Schuster senior editor Chuck Adams has been waiting for three years to bid on a proposed memoir by legendary screen star Maureen O'Hara, and when it came up for auction last week it was his six-figure bid for North American rights that carried the day. O'Hara, whose screen career dates back to 1939's How Green Was My Valley and embraces such classics as the original Miracle on 34th Street and The Quiet Man, will have the cooperation of screenwriter John Nicoletti in telling her tale of the many colorful directors and stars she knew—she was John Wayne's most frequent leading lady and starred often for John Ford. It was agent Mitchell Waters at Curtis Brown who took the 82-year-old star around to meet publishers just before the July 4 holiday and who concluded the deal with Adams. S&S expects to publish in 2004.